


Hanging on

by morred



Category: Thick of It (UK)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-05
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 15:54:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morred/pseuds/morred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicola should have known this was a bad idea. She should have followed her instincts and taken the stairs</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hanging on

Nicola should have known this was a bad idea. She should have followed her instincts and taken the stairs, 'closed for repair' be damned. (And what sort of shit hole of a place closed the stairs for maintenance before everyone had left anyway. Ok, it was eight at night, but this is a government office; anyone with half a brain should have known it would be full of workaholic insomniacs). But she'd tried to explain and Malcolm had looked at her, irritated and (which stung more) _amused_ and as always - as _fucking_ always - when he seriously asked her to do something, she'd followed him.  
  
And now they're stuck in a tiny metal-walled box. She's stuck in a tiny, tiny metal box with _no windows_ (oh god, was it possible to run out of air) with Malcolm. It could, perhaps, have been worse (it could have been Ollie) but Malcolm had already punched the communication button with no response. He'd shouted angrily at it for a while, in the hope that the sheer power of his annoyance would rewire the circuits, but to no avail. Nicola checks her phone: no reception. She tells herself sternly that that means _nothing_. The mobile reception in the whole place is patchy at best.  
  
She reaches into her bag for her Rescue Remedy. Malcolm, leaning neatly against a wall watches her. 'You do know that's a total load of fucking bollocks?'   
  
Nicola straightens up and glares at him. 'Be very careful, Malcolm. Is this really the time you want to persuade me of the inefficacy of the one thing that'll stop me turning into a gibbering mess within about two minutes?'  
  
Malcolm acknowledges the point with a raised eyebrow and silence. Nicola closes her eyes and tried to breathe. Almost immediately, she snaps them open again. At least if she watches, she can be fairly sure that the walls aren't actually getting closer.   
  
'You're really scared, aren't you?' One of his moments of startling gentleness; her vision swims.  
  
Nicola bites her lip before snapping at him. 'What did you think? That I walk up and down flights of stairs for my health? That I don't take the Tube because I'm just so _famous_ that I can't move for people asking me for autographs? Yes, Malcolm, yes. I'm really scared. As usual, you are completely right. Well done.'  
  
Malcolm's scanning his Blackberry, carefully hiding his own flutter of panic when he realises that it has no signal. He _hates_ being cut off. Nicola chugs another three drops of Rescue Remedy. It doesn't seem to work. Fucking Malcolm has fucking broken it with his fucking _rationality_. She takes a deep breath. There's a very small gap where the doors shut, so it's almost certain they won't run out of air. And Malcolm probably doesn't even breathe anyway.  
  
'Pity you don't have an iphone,' she remarks, aware that her wittering is now verging very close to total panic. 'There's probably an app for lift rescue.'  
  
Malcolm actually laughs. 'Aye, but I'd rather be stuck in a lift than be a fucking wanker with my wee white smugphone from apple fucking _wank_ intosh.'  
  
The distraction is helping, but Nicola still feels more than a little faint. Slipping off her heels, she slumps gracelessly to the floor. (Malcolm thinks she was a sack of potatoes with lipstick anyway - he'd made that perfectly clear at the Guardian lunch - so it's hardly as though it _matters_ if he see her in a fucking state). The walls definitely are getting closer; she can feel them pressing gently but inexorably against her skull. She blinks rapidly and starts to hunt for tissues. 'How long's it been?' she asks, her voice rough.  
  
'For fuck's sake.' Malcolm makes a great show of twitching back an elegant cuff to consult his watch. 'About ten minutes.' Nicola carries on hunting for tissues. 'Jesus wept, woman. You'd think someone as weepy as you'd actually carry some fucking tissues.' He hands her a clean hankerchief and Nicola sits on the floor and clutches it, sniffing and glaring. She'll be _damned_ if she uses his hanky though; who the fuck does he think he is: an angrier, more Scottish Mr Darcy? (And _who_ , she thinks, sniffing again, carries pristine white handkerchiefs - apart from the fucking Eton Tory wankers in the Opposition, who probably use them for wiping the extra coke of each other's _cocks_.)  
  
'There must be _something_ you're scared of, Malcolm,' she says reasonably. (She spoils the effect somewhat with a huge hitch in her voice somewhere around _scared_ and a slight stutter on his name.)  
  
Malcolm looks absolutely, utterly blank. 'Not _fucking_ lifts.'  
  
'It's not the lift, you tosser. I don't have a strange and irrational phobia of _lifts_. You really must think I'm a mental case.'  
  
'No comment.' A shark-like smile. Nicola wants to slap him. 'Though I don't understand how someone with four kids - _four!_ Are you allergic to the fucking pill? _-_ is fazed by a little thing like an enclosed space _'  
  
_ Rage flares bright and sharp through the encroaching brainfog of utter panic. She tries to throw his handkerchief at his sneering, condescending head but it flutters damply at his feet. He's using that _tolerant_ expression again. It's remarkably similar to the one she uses on the kids when she knows they were at least _trying_. She considers standing up, but moving makes the dizziness kick back in and her head swims alarmingly. And he'd still tower over her anyway.  
  
'My family,' deep breath, 'is off. limits. You can make me change their schools to avoid political scandal, but you _do not_ get to make personal remarks to _me_ about it, ok? Mr fucking I wear a wedding ring but anyone who even notices will get crucified by my fucking arse poker of vengeance or whatever baroque bullying threat you can come up with next.'  
  
Malcolm looks first enraged, then impressed. Neatly, he settles down on the floor, on the opposite side of the lift of her, wrists balanced on his drawn-up knees.She watches the flickering strip lighting play on the slim gold band on his left hand. If she believed she'd ever get out the lift, she'd worry that she's probably just made an implacable enemy of Malcolm Tucker. As she is still convinced they're both going to die stuck in here (though she's very nearly succeeding in being calm about it) she can't bring herself to care.  
  
'You know you're the first person to ask me that,' Malcolm has his head tilted back, eyes squinting against the anaemic flourescent light.  
  
Nicola snorts. Her fingers are still wrapped tightly around her bottle of Rescue Remedy, a talisman against god knew what. 'That's because you've created such a Reign of Terror that most people are scared to ask you what day it is.'  
  
That shark-like smile again. 'Are you no scared of me, Nicky?' he asks, voice low and dangerous. It's somehow worse than when he shouts.  
  
They are alone in a stalled lift, to all intents and purposes abandoned by the world. It should sound like a deeply unpleasant threat. Nicola's surprised to find that she's not remotely scared of him.  
  
'What's the worst you can do, Malcolm? You could ruin my career, which - as you so regularly point out - I could do myself any day. You could shout at me, but not forever. You wouldn't hit me.' Malcolm suddenly looks directly at her. She can't decipher his expression. She takes a shaky breath and readjusts the small bottle in her hand. 'And if you stop talking, I will start to have hysterics.' She sounds remarkably calm, considering, but he doesn't doubt for a moment that it's a statement of fact. Her pupils are wide with suppressed panic and her hands are shaking badly. 'So talk. And make it interesting, or I'll start thinking about how fucking _small_ this lift is.'  
  
'How are things with James?' Malcolm asks. Nicola decides to overlook the apparent non sequitur because Malcolm is staring blankly at his left hand, twisting his wedding ring round and round.  
  
'Good. Well, you know. I think about as good as things can be between two people who've been married for over 20 years, have four children and both work 60-hour weeks. God, sorry, that makes it sound pretty bleak. James is... well, he's not always the easiest person to live with.'  
  
Malcolm's lip quirk oddly. 'Workaholic?'  
  
Nicola gives a half shrug. 'I can hardly complain. But I'd _share_ my work with him, if he asked. But he doesn't really care. He's... it's a hard job he does, Malcolm. In a very real sense, he has far more responsibility on his hands. Life and death decisions and all that. But he won't discuss it with me. Doesn't want to talk about it. And, of course, he's an upper-middle-class man, so he's pretty emotionally constipated.' She laughs. 'Unlike me, as you'll notice.'  
  
Malcolm gives her an assessing look that she doesn't altogether like. She gets the strong impression that Malcolm sees far too much. 'He doesn't deserve you.'  
  
Nicola chokes down a sob. It's becoming unbearably hot in the lift. 'No, he doesn't. But he probably doesn't love me, so it evens out.'  
  
'Why d'you stay?' He's staring at his ring again. Nicola has the sudden, awful, revelation that they're not really talking about her and James any more. She can't get any words past the lump in her throat. 'Well?' he hectors, 'you wanted to talk, didn't you? Gone off the idea now it's your life we're going to fucking dissect?'  
  
The lighting is inexorable, flickering as Malcolm shrugs out of his coat and folds it neatly. At least the heat isn't her imagination.   
  
Nicola knows she's taking too long to answer. 'I love him,' she says, simply. 'And he's not a bad man, underneath it all. He used to be so- and sometimes he reminds me and it's like the sun's come out.' Her lips twist, flustered at her sentimentality. 'And he's a wonderful father. He adores the kids... I couldn't... he couldn't...' She pauses. Time for more Rescue Remedy. Malcolm's gone back to avoiding her eyes. 'You never?' she asks.  
  
A sharp shake of his head. He runs a hand across his close-cropped hair. There's something close to desolation in his eyes and she can't look. 'No,' he says shortly.   
  
'So,' Nicola says in a brave attempt at regrouping. 'We know why I stay. Why did you leave?'  
  
She realises her mistake almost the moment the words leave her mouth. Malcolm rebuilds his face into a rigid mask of spitting rage, but she'd caught the moment when it had collapsed.  
  
'You think _I_ left. Fucking _hell_ , woman, do you even- _Christ_. Do you really think I'd still be wearing the fucking ring if I'd-' Nicola desperately scrambles to remember everything she's heard about Malcolm's wife. _Surely_ someone would have said if she'd _died_. Malcolm's still talking, hurling words at her, voice barely under control. 'I'm _still married_ , you stupid, spaniel-haired, _cunt_. Do you think I wouldn't have her back- even after what she-'  
  
She can see the moment when he forces himself to stop speaking, watches his throat work.   
  
'Malcolm,' she says softly. She wants to _touch_ him: a hand on his arm, his shoulder. But he's still sitting opposite her and she can see him pull solitude around him like a cocoon. It comes to her with a stab that it's entirely possible that _no one_ has touched him since- She feels an irrational rush of _guilt_ and crushing, suffocating pity. There's a sudden uprush of relief when she remembers the pictures in his office. Somewhere, he's someone's brother, someone's uncle.  
  
She refocuses on the lift. She's not even sure he can _hear_ her. 'Malcolm, I am so sorry. If I'd known...'  
  
'Yeah, well.' There's the briefest flash of his old self. 'It's not really the sort of thing I like to discuss at our champagne and coke policy parties.' There's a brief pause. 'I prefer to let people believe I'm fucking overcome with rage about the adulterous harlot and her _fucking_ yank wankstain of a-' he breaks off, gives her a heartbreaking half-smile, 'it's a bit more fucking _dignified,_ ye know?'  
  
She realises she had forgotten about the fucking lift while he spoke, but it comes rushing back now and she has to put her head down on her chest until she can breathe more easily. Nicola has an almost irresistible urge to ask about _her_. She finds she wants to know about the woman who did, who _could_ do this, to Malcolm. Where _is_ she?  
  
'I'm scared of spiders,' he says and it's almost an apology. Nicola drags her head up to look at him. 'White-water rafting, abseiling - not fucking good at heights at all, mess...'  
  
The weight of _not asking about his wife_ is so great that Nicola mutters the first non-wife-related thought in her head. '...Loss of control.' And immediately she wants to kill herself (not that she'll have to - how _long_ have they been in this lift? She has no idea, and cannot bear to ask Malcolm again).  
  
There's another uncomfortable silence. 'I thought you wanted to know about _irrational_ phobias,' he says, lightly enough.  
  
It's always been Nicola's besetting sin: every teacher's report, everything her grandmother and mother and nannies ever said boil down to this - she cannot stop some words coming out of her mouth, however much she'd give to keep them back. 'And what'll happen if you lose control, Malcolm,' she asks, gently.   
  
He gives her an unspeakable, eloquent look. 'Nicky,' and Nicola wishes they were discussing the state of her fucked-up marriage again. She's not sure he'll go on; she can hear the tick of his watch and the faint buzz of the lights. She's just trying to reach through the fuzziness in her head and fight down a wave of a nausea. It's still too hot. She almost misses when he starts speaking again. 'Well, just to give you a fucking example, for your fucking evidence folder, your psycho-fucking _profile_ \- one major time I fucking lost control _in front of someone else,_ I tried to punch someone, failed, and then got my fucking arm broken.'  
  
Nicola can't bring herself to ask. She suddenly becomes aware that she's been crying. She hates to think of the state her face is in - but then she glances at Malcolm; at least she can blame claustrophobia and cheap mascara.  
  
Malcolm couldn't have told you why he carries on talking. There's always been something undeniably _safe_ about Nicola, something that he doesn't like to examine too closely. 'It was at my mam's funeral,' he says, voice chokingly Glaswegian on _mam_. 'And my fucking jizz pipe of a father thought he had a fucking right to be there.'  
  
'How old-' Nicola begins. He's answering before she can choke back the question.  
  
'25. I should have broken his fucking _neck_.'  
  
'Christ, Malcolm. And your dad broke your arm?'  
  
Malcolm gives an elaborate shrug that seems to convey that it had exactly been a fucking _shock_. And then his voice cracks out like a whip. 'He wasn'ae my _dad_.' He almost smiles, 'I referred to him solely as 'that bastard' from when I was about eight.'  
  
Nicola wants to offer a reciprocal confidence, trade confessions to appease the guilt that's still threatening to swamp her. But what does she have that she can possibly say - that her mother once dismissed an au pair for shutting Nicola in the bathroom for half an hour when she had a tantrum? 'He hit your mum?' she asks and somewhere at the back of her mind she's amazed that Malcolm can talk about this relatively calmly, compared with the maelstrom of emotions mention of his wife had provoked.  
  
'Ye know what they say about Scots, Nic'la. We like every fucking thing battered.' Nicola never wants to see that expression on his face ever again. She shuts her eyes until she can be sure he's stopped. 'That's not why she left,' he says and Nicola genuinely has to take a moment to sort this out.  
  
'No, Malcolm. I'd never even- I _know_ you would never,' she repeats.  
  
He looks at her with wary, grateful disbelief.  
  
There's a sickening jolt; Nicola screams and Malcolm scrambles to his feet. After a shuddering minute where the whole lift seem to hum, Nicola feels her ears pop. The lift's going down. She scrubs ineffectually at her face and stands up.   
  
'Looks like we're going to make it out,' Nicola can feel the relief bubbling up.  
  
Malcolm shrugs on his coat and adjusts the lapels. 'Look, Nic'la,' he begins. Nicola can see he's gearing up for some A-grade swearing.  
  
'I know,' she interrupts. 'What happened in the lift, stays in the lift,' she laughs nervously. 'The first rule of the lift is that you don't talk about the lift.'   
  
Malcolm gives her a curt nod. 'Get home to your feckless husband.'  
  
The lift doors open onto an empty lobby.  
  
'Malcolm.'  
  
'Get away wi' ye, Nicky. I expect the kids are waiting for you to do their homework.'  
  
Nicola sighs. 'If it's not all done already, I'm sacking the nanny. And James.'  
  
It's a sure sign of his distraction that Malcolm doesn't even wince at the mention of Nicola's nanny (subject of several pitched battles between them).   
  
'Malcolm,' she tries again, and then stops. What's she going to _say_? He's fiddling with his Blackberry, checking whether everything's back up and running. 'Take care,' she settles for, and reaches up to brush a spot of dust from the immaculate charcoal of his coat.  
  
'You too, Nicola.' And he sweeps out, buttoning his coat as he goes.


End file.
